Heads Up For The Three Blue Teardrops!

Hey everybody, back with another “Featured Artist” for you and this time we got Chicago, IL based “Three Blue Teardrops“. These guys have been in the rockabilly scene for almost 20 years now, with their most notable album, “One Part Fist” being released on the great Nervous Records in the U.K. Yes, I’m sure you remember their classic cult-like hits like “Switchblade Pompadour” and “Wanted Man”, but many of you might not be aware that there is alot more Teardrops stuff out there than just that release.

Dave Sisson, guitarist and vocalist, took some time to do a little Q&A session with me to fill you guys/gals in all the “whos, whats, whens, wheres, and whys” about the Three Blue Teardrops.

Enjoy!

Jay: First off, introduce yourself and band members and what instrument you each play?

Dave Sisson: Randy Sabo-Drums and Gang Vocals, Rick Uppling-Upright Bass and Vocals, Dave Sisson- Hollowbody Guitar and Vocals (Me folks! Hi.)

Jay: How did you form your band and how did you come up with the name “Three Blue Teardrops”?

DS: We all met each other in Chicago in summer of 1991 hangin’ around the fringes of the Rockabilly and Punk scene. I had just moved to Chicago from Pittsburgh, PA and Randy was transplanted from Michigan and Rick is a native Chicagoan. There was one guy everyone in the scene knew because of the tremendous size of his pompadour which stood well over a foot tall. His name was Carl Schreiber and he rebuilds vintage Gretsch guitars and played some with Rick Uppling and his brother Steve Uppling in a band called “The Chasers”. When they split up Carl wanted to get something going again and we all were contacted by Carl. We met at our first rehearsal in an empty warehouse at Fulton and Halsted Streets (now a condo building) and hit it off but after that promising start Carl never called us again and we didn’t know how to contact one another (That’s right kids -NO CELL PHONES AND NO INTERNET back in those dark ages!). I ran into Randy at a Hi-Fi & the Roadburners’ show on the North Side and he knew how to contact Rick as they worked next door to each other. We ended up going on without Carl. He was kinda pissed but we’re still friends.

We got together as a trio and started playing lots of original music immediately. I do not believe we wasted any time doing covers except a few we still do today (Ersel Hickey, Johnny Horton, Crazy Cavan). “Three Blue Teardrops” was a song I wrote with most of the lyrics coming from a story in a Daniel Clowes comic book out then in the mid/late 1980’s called “Lloyd Llewellyn.” It’s in issue #2 and I had to add extra words and we did record it as a bonus track on our Rustbelt Trio CD (2006). We learned it early on and were like most bands stumped for a name and took it because there were 3 of us and it DIDN’T have “Cats” in the name (there were TONS AND TONS of bands with Cats in the name like the Stray Cats and Blue Cats and Polecats and Rockatz and Bopcats etc…) and I also have always been a HUGE Marty Robbins fan. He was known as “Mister Teardrop” so it’s a partial homage to him.

Jay: That’s a nice little history lesson. So who or what are your musical inspirations?

DS: Well, knowing the guys the way I do we definitely had and still have many similar musical interests. Bands that influenced us (short list)- The Clash, The Jam, The Paladins, The Buzzcocks, Anti-Nowhere League, Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly and the Crickets, Bill Haley and his Comets, Willie Dixon’s Big 3 Trio, Violent Femmes, Shakin’ Pyramids, Crazy Cavan and his Rhythm Rockers, Sham 69, early Black Flag, Dead Kennedys, The Cramps, Hasil Adkins, A-Bones, X, The Blasters, The Long Ryders, The Tailgators, Treat Her Right, Elvis Hitler, Marty Robbins, Johnny Horton, Elvis Presley-Bill- Scotty and DJ, The Replacements, Joe Bennett and his Sparkletones, Little Walter, The Everly Brothers, Johnny Cash, Angelic Upstarts, Big Sandy and His Flyrights, High Noon, Reverend Horton Heat, Social Distortion, Subterfuge, James Hunter, Flatfoot 56, Slink Moss Explosion, Naked Raygun, Jack Scott to name a few.

Jay: To name a few huh? Ha ha. Well you guys have been around in the music game for while now and have played with many great bands over the years. What are some big bands that you have performed or toured with?

DS: Well, I know I feel kind of bad about it but I don’t remember every one of ‘em and some never made it big but they were all great. Bands mentioned above like Big Sandy, The Paladins, Elvis Hitler, Joe Bennett’s Sparkletones and The Tailgators, as well as Junior Brown, The Quakes, The Sharks, Demented Are-Go!, Mad Sin, Royal Crown Revue, The Useless Playboys, Ronnie Dawson and High Noon, Billy Lee Riley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Sonny Burgess and DJ Fontana, Andre Williams, Ben Folds 5, Jesus Lizard, The Bottletones, Flatfoot 56, Deals Gone Bad, Jack White while he was in Goober and the Peas, Hi Fi & the Roadburners, Jake LaBotz, Hot Club of Cowtown, Wayne Hancock, Pegboy, The Effigies, Jason & The Scorchers, Deadbolt, Legendary Shackshakers, Unknown Hinson, The Medallions, Bill Kirchen, oh man…….A thousand more I think…

Jay: That’s a pretty impressive list. Alot of legends there. When it comes to playing live gigs, do you guys usually prefer playing large venues or do you like the club/bar scene?

DS: I would say our favorite type of venue to play is a mid size music venue. I do not mean a beer and shot joint with a lousy P.A. system and 35 televisions covering 27 sporting events but rather a ROCK CLUB with a stage and the smell of beer and stickers all over the walls and dressing rooms with a couch you actually might sit on. One with an actual soundman and one where the crowd is up close and we can see them and they can see us in a personal way but a big enough room to have some exciting energy to it.

Big gigs are OK but it seems like we have a hard time connecting to big crowds. It really does take some talent to connect with a large audience. I believe we consider ourselves a “dirty little rock’n roll band.”

Jay: What’s the typical audience that you usually attract at your gigs?

DS: No particular type. We tend to attract punks, rockabillies, psychobillies, freaks, outcasts, loners, ex-cons, bikers, sex addicts, drug addicts, teenagers, adults who refuse to grow up, hot rodders, bicyclists, working stiffs, traders, cops, firemen, moms, dads and children of all ages. The best quote at any one of our gigs I ever saw was a tattooed ruffian greaser of 26 bump into a tattooed ruffian greaser of 70 who looked at the 26 year old and said, “Watch it kid, I was kickin’ your daddy’s ass before you were a gleam in your mommy’s eye!” Priceless that.

Jay: Alright, time for a few in depth questions about your music career for the Teardrop die hards out there. You guys took a little hiatus from playing shows and recording about 10 years ago and came back with a brand new full length album a couple years ago. What made you decide to come back to playing shows and recording again?

DS: Really we never had a big fight or a group meeting where we decided to BREAK UP. We just all kinda got older and married our gals and started having babies and buying houses and rehabbing them or whatever. It’s very challenging to have the responsibility for raising little people and you sure can’t do it playing one nighters all over the place. We just slowed down and it kind of petered out slowly. I myself started a 6 piece honky-tonk band called the Gin Palace Jesters gigging mostly regional stuff and the next thing you know we went 3 years without playing a show.

We did a couple shows a year for a while but then a fan in California (HEY DANIEL!) contacted us about starting a Myspace page for us around 2004. Being the clueless guys we were we told him sure and didn’t check the thing. He kept emailing saying, “Hey you got like 400 emails in this thing” and still we didn’t check it. When we did we realized we apparently had a lot more fans than we knew about and people wanted us to go here and there and play this place or that. We decided if we were going to try to play again in a laid back balanced way we sure didn’t want to rest on what few laurels we had and decided to put out a new disc. We did just that and I guess we are about due to make another new one because that “new” one is getting pretty old isn’t it? Jeez how time flies. So the answer is the FANS made us decide. We did it for them AND for us. Why not?

Jay: And I must say that you do have some pretty die hard fans out there especially here in Cali, me included. I happen to be one of the lucky ones that managed to get a copy of all 4 of your full length album releases and also your newest compilation album, “Heads Up For The 53!”. They all seem to differ from each other and really shows off your range of styles. Was that something that you guys decided you would be doing going into each release? Or were you influenced by the record labels to come up with certain styled songs for each album? For example, “One Part Fist” on Nervous Records has a strong “neo-rockabilly” feel to it. “Mile Marker 26″ has an “Americana-Country” type sound to it and “Poised In Hate” has a traditional, raw rockabilly feel to it.

DS: Well, We’ve always decided what songs we wanted to record. I think we started off trying to play raw punk-rockabilly mixed with lots of 1960s garage sounds and Link Wray style stuff and some cowpunk and what Rick called “Southwestern-Spookabilly”. We wanted our music to be fun and wild and exciting with some Oi influence and lots of shouts and gang vocals and stuff. The kind of music you’d drink to or drive to or both. The only difference between the Nervous Record’s “One Part Fist” disc and the Teen Rebel Record’s “(Stiletto) Poised in Hate” CD is the first was recorded overseas with other peoples gear and mixed by Alan Wilson and engineer Graham deciding what we should sound like and the latter was recorded with our own gear right in our home base of Chicago with us having final say on the mixes.

I prefer the Teen Rebel stuff which we just reissued as the “Head’s Up For ‘53″ CD. The “Milemarker 26″ CD was a strange recording because both Rick and I were trying to cram songs into a band that maybe didn’t fit well. I had country and honkytonk songs I had written that I thought were pretty good and Rick had some moody and acoustic songs he wanted to do so we decided to go for it and it ended up a bit all over the map ultimately. I think what we learned is just because a song is maybe “GOOD” it may not be good for us. So it’s OUR “Sandinista” album only done in 13 tracks. Ha.

With “Rustbelt Trio” we agreed we just wanted to go back to making a FUN recording. I think we did pretty good with it. It has a diversity of tracks and we recorded it so quick with each track being the 1st through 3rd takes. We wanted it to be a clean good recording but not too polished that it would lose that RAW factor our early recordings have. It was kind of a fine line to walk. How did we do?

Jay: I think you captured that “RAW” sound pretty well. I know there’s a couple of rare recordings out there, like the 4 songs recorded live for the V.M. Live Series, the hidden track that you mentioned earlier on the “Rustbelt Trio” release and the very rare “Blue Hawaii” EP. I have heard it and seen it mentioned but I never have been able to come across an actual copy. What songs are on that EP? Any previously unreleased songs on there?

DS: The Blue Hawaii EP was a blue vinyl 4 song 7″ EP containing:

1) “Blue Hawaii For Me”- Rick’s song about getting drunk on fruity cocktails to nurse a heartbreak which includes sea gull noises straight from Lake Michigan! It was originally recorded by the Chasers which is the REAL rare version. Go She-Devil was also recorded by the Chasers!

2) “High & Dry”- A bluegrassy train song about the Norfolk and Western Train that runs over the trestle through Carnegie, Pennsylvania.

3) “Lincoln 59″- An earlier (and in my opinion lesser) version of the song on the Rustbelt Trio CD.

4) “Hard-Boiled” - Also and earlier and clearly lesser version of the song on the Rustbelt Trio CD because this version doesn’t have the spelling part. Everybody loves a spelling song like Loretta Lynn’s “D-I-V-O-R-C-E.”

There were 500 copies made and it’s hilarious to think anyone who wanted one didn’t get one because I think we lugged those things around in a suitcase for years and I must have moved them boxes into at least 2 apartments! Where were you then? I couldn’t give ‘em away! I rate this EP a B+ for packaging and a B- for content.

The VML disc was a guy with a cassette recorder who showed up at our show and asked Rick if he could record us. He did. He then contacted us and said he wanted to put out some of the songs which I cannot recall if I heard before hand. Then the thing came out and I think our only payment was a few hundred free copies. I finally heard it and was MORTIFIED! I don’t have a copy myself. I want to forget it ever happened. I give this EP a C for packaging and a D for content.

The funny thing is we got a ton of new fans from the recording so I guess some people really liked it. I just know I didn’t. I’m just being honest. I also was the guy who said back in 1983, “Well U2 are pretty good but they are no ALARM, those guys are gonna be HUGE!” Clearly I have no clue.

Jay: Now everybody is gonna go out and find that VML recording (and for all you Teardrop fans that want to collect all their releases, it is READILY available nowadays with a little searching)! Ha ha. Anyways, my personal favorite song has to be “Wished Upon A Star” and it seems to have almost a cult-like following here on the west coast. With the very melodic, country driven rhythm, great harmonizing vocals and a strong message behind the lyrics, I think music lovers of all kinds would enjoy that song. Any personal favorites that you guys like playing at your shows or that you have recorded?

DS: “Wished Upon A Star” is one of those Rick Uppling written songs that I absolutely LOVE. I gotta tell ya, Rick is a wonderful, kind hearted, private and strange individual and he thinks EVERY song he writes is a fantastic little gem. I tease him about that but I mean they are ALL his babies and he loves them all so much. The problem is the ones that I really really love are not necessarily the ones he wants to let out into the daylight and we do have a bit of creative tension with that.

Although I didn’t write it, I was eager to record “Wished Upon A Star” and also was the guy fighting for “Lord Send Me An Angel” and “I Still Dream of You” to be recorded and who wanted him to record the strange “Western Springs” on Milemarker 26. He has a core sadness and melancholy in some of his songs that really speak to me so I’m glad others also appreciate them.

Aside from that, I personally I also really like to play “Shocked!” live and “Wanted Man” and “Moment of Truth”. There’s lots of guitar fun for me on those and “Switchblade Pompadour” seems to be real underground classic hit.

Jay: Speaking of “Western Springs”, that’s actually a song I immediately liked. It was very different from anything you guys had done since it is pure acoustic, but it came out very well. What was the thought process or inspiration behind that one?

DS: Rick said he invented the place in his mind to go when he was sad. Rick fights bouts of manic-depression and it’s where he goes to escape he told me. It’s a fictional place although there is a Western Chicago suburb coincidently called “Western Springs” although Rick claimed to have not known that although perhaps he subconsciously picked it up in his young life growing up in the Chicago area?

He played it for me once and it jumped out because I got all misty eyed when I heard it way back when and it’s most definitely NOT Rockabilly nor Pop nor Blues nor Punk nor much else except pure American Balladry. I’m glad you like it. I like it too.

Jay: Definitely a song I would recommend. Go check it out people. So what are the future plans for the band? Any plans for a new CD?

DS: Yeah, I guess we should get crackin’ on one. It’s funny but now Randy and my kids are getting older and more independent so we are itchy to get on the road for more shows but Rick is 5 years behind the curve having 4 kids with his wife and 3 are under the age of 5. You can imagine it’s very stressful for them both and even more so when we lure Rick back into the van to some far flung location leaving her to take care of business.

We’d like to record a new disc soon though and had discussed tentative plans with our Chicago friend Jimmy Sutton about using his studio to record it. Jimmy has a lot of vintage gear as well as modern editing equipment and he keeps saying he wants to record us to sound like Link Wray meets The Litters or something straight outta 1955-1967 complete with tube fuzz, reel to reel warmth, tube mics and the whole tape echo madness. I think we need to work up a couple of new songs first and rehearse them but maybe we can get cracking before we get too much older.

Jay: Well if your buddy comes through and lets you guys use the studio with all that vintage gear, this next album should sound killer. Alright, just a couple more questions before I let you be on your way……. Where can your fans find out all your latest news and info?

DS: Check out our website at www.3blueteardrops.com where you can tease us for not updating our show pages or say hello to us on www.myspace.com/threeblueteardrops where we WILL answer your emails…eventually.

Jay: Any final words for your fans and readers of The Opening Set?

DS: We are humbly thankin’ you and gently remind you that:

1). Robert Mitchum is THE MAN and 2). Patsy Cline is THE WOMAN.

Cheers
Dave

Cheers indeed Dave. Thanks again, much appreciated.